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I teach in a very socioeconomically diverse school and our staff wanted to find a way to give back to the community while teaching students about hunger, poverty, and gratitude. As a result, for the last several years, our school has hosted an event called Day of Giving. While I did not come up with the original concept, I have been involved since the beginning and have been the coordinator for the past two years.

What is Day of Giving?

During the month of November, we hold a school wide canned food and overall donation drive. We take the items we have collected and turn our gym into a giant superstore where community members in need can come and "shop" for free. Students help bring in donations and spend a half-day of school helping to organize them and working on other related service projects. It's an incredible day for students to learn about empathy and gratitude and it's absolutely heart warming to see the looks on people's faces who receive the fruits of our labor!

How does it work?

Donations come mostly from students, but we have also received random donations from community members by advertising on social media. My principal is great about providing incentives for the kids to motivate them to bring in more items, such as contests between homerooms and raffles for homework passes or other free items. As much as we would like the kids to bring out of the goodness of their hearts, the incentives really help. Over the years we have learned to ask people to focus their donations on food, toys, toiletries, baby items, and toilet paper. We accept clothing donations as well, but clothes tend to be left over at the end of the event, so we don’t emphasize it.

​The service-learning day takes place on a Friday, which has always been a half- day for students. Students spend the day with their homeroom and have 3 blocks: academic, service, and organization. During the organization block, they help set up the gym. Here is a link to the lesson plans for the other two blocks.

The event itself is typically held on a Saturday morning and open to the entire community. People in need come and “shop” in our gym, using a box we provide them. This is always the trickiest part, and people definitely take more than fits in their box, but I have always found it really hard to say “no” to people in need.

It is seriously my favorite day of the year and the students really get into it. They feel really proud of themselves and are always amazed to see all their hard work pay off when the gym is finally ready. It's truly an amazing experience for all involved! ​